


Get Your Own Stick: Clara, Missy, and Enemy Cooperation ("The Magician's Assistant" and "The Witch's Familiar")

by PlaidAdder



Series: Doctor Who Meta [10]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Episode: s09e01 The Magician's Apprentice, Episode: s09e2 The Witch's Familiar, Gen, Meta, Nonfiction, Series 9, Spoilers, witch's familiar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-29
Updated: 2015-09-29
Packaged: 2018-04-24 00:12:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4897711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PlaidAdder/pseuds/PlaidAdder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>OK, so first of all, there will be spoilers for the first two episodes of Doctor Who series 9, “The Magician’s Apprentice” and “The Witch’s Familiar.” Second, it will mainly be about Clara and Missy and how Moffat handles a plot development that I myself dearly love: forcing two enemies to cooperate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Get Your Own Stick: Clara, Missy, and Enemy Cooperation ("The Magician's Assistant" and "The Witch's Familiar")

  * OK, so first of all, there will be spoilers for the first two episodes of Doctor Who series 9, “The Magician’s Apprentice” and “The Witch’s Familiar.” Second, it will mainly be about Clara and Missy and how Moffat handles a plot development that I myself dearly love: forcing two enemies to cooperate. 

So I have to say that although I still see huge problems, the Capaldi Era still seems overall to be more entertaining than series 5-7. I mean when the Doctor rode in on a tank playing a guitar as if he’s auditioning for  _Fury Road_ (no doubt only the legal department prevented him from yelling, “Witness me!”) part of me just let out a groan of “Are you fucking kidding me?”–but I must confess that part of me was also saying, “All right, that is pretty cool.” I’m always glad to see Kate from UNIT in action, even if she never does anything very important and I miss Osgood. And I hugely enjoyed Missy in these episodes. Even though she’s still dressed like Mary Poppins In Hell, these episodes give her more latitude, and Michelle Gomez’s performance is constantly changing and always engaging, even when the script itself kind of lets her down. I like the way Missy keeps coming up with little ways to remind us all that she’s still evil, and the pleasure she takes in her work. I actually enjoy Missy a lot better than I ever enjoyed The Master, except for that brief shining moment when he was being played by Derek Jacobi. She’s more interesting than the other Moffat women from whom she is descended, partly because she is not entirely in compliance with the #andsexy rule. She clearly think she’s sexy, though to most of us I imagine she’s pretty much horrifying; but more important, the question of her sexiness is not relevant to the situation at hand. She is, in other words, treated more like Moffat treats the male characters, which I suppose in some way makes sense.

At the same time, there are a few things still going on that I am well and truly tired of. For one thing: for a guy who loves him some action, Moffat still has the characters spend far too much time standing around talking about the Doctor. Don’t fucking DEBATE and DESCRIBE him, just put him in action and let us be the judge. Related to this is the irritation that comes with noting that despite the fact that Clara and Missy spend a fair amount of time on screen alone together, “The Witch’s Familiar” does not truly pass the Bechdel Test, because everything they do or say is in reference to the Doctor. Even Missy’s explanation of how she and Clara survived the Daleks (that explanation is pants, by the way; Missy teleports her ass out of there many seconds before the Daleks shoot Clara, so I don’t see how she could have done the energy transfer thing on Clara’s vortex manipulator when it was her turn) has to be cast as a parable about the Doctor. “Consider the Doctor,” she says, for the 15th time, and I’m just like, I do not wish to CONSIDER him, can we please stop CONTEMPLATING him and just WATCH him?

For another: after going to great lengths to develop Clara’s cleverness and autonomy in series 8, the first two episodes of series 9 send her right to the back of the class again. All right, in “The Magician’s Apprentice” she is able to match wits with Missy during the meeting in the square, or at least she thinks she is. But in “The Witch’s Familiar,” Clara accepts a subordinate role in her partnership with Missy far too easily, obeys her far too readily, and resigns herself to Missy’s manipulations far too passively. During their initial conversation, during which she’s hanging upside down from a rope, Clara doesn’t even try to untie herself. That’s basically a metaphor for the whole collaboration. Missy explains things, tells her what to do, pulls a number of very nasty surprises on her, and she just goes along with it…it’s just like Clara’s dynamic with Eleven, except for how Missy is evil and Clara knows that and she really ought to be able to be more on her guard than this.

And that is a shame, because I really love enemy collaboration. No, I do. It is one of my favorite things to write, especially between women. Because I hate Jim Moriarty and he annoys me, I haven’t done much enemy collaboration in my Sherlock fic–oh, wait, it happens with Harry in “Young Men Carbuncular” and “Prior Engagements,” so never mind. WOFsters will, I am sure, recall the moments at which, for various reasons, Theamh and Aine are forced to cooperate to a certain extent with their nemeses. I like this device because it’s usually unexpected, it allows you to develop aspects of both characters, and because it proves that both characters are willing to overcome binaristic bullshit in order to pursue a goal they can both recognize as important. Looking back over the various moments at which I have perpetrated this trope, it appears that this collaboration is usually enabled by the fact that the evil partner has an investment in a particular person that s/he doesn't want hurt, or the fact that they have a common enemy--both things which are true, to some extent at least some of the time, for Missy and Clara. They are both invested in the Doctor, and they're neither of them very keen on Daleks. 

I think in a way that kind of collaboration gives me hope for human progress. Because we will never really get anywhere as long as we can only work together with people we personally like and whose beliefs we share. Climate change, for instance, is a planetary problem, and people who see themselves as 'good' will need to cooperate with people they see as 'evil' if we are ever to solve it. So those moments at which adversaries can actually look at each other and say, all right, you hate me and I hate you but can we agree that for right now this thing needs to be done and we will do this thing together, are really hopeful moments, even or especially if neither party is actually permanently changed by the interaction. (In _Darkness Bright_, for instance, as soon as it's possible for her to do it, Lythril goes right back to being Lythril, and Theamh goes right back to thwarting her; and yet that brief moment when their interests coincide and Lythril is actually--for her own very different motives--doing Theamh a solid is one of my favorite moments in the whole series.)  

But another thing I love about enemy collaboration is how the tension just never lets up and neither party ever trusts the other for a moment. It means that the game can change abruptly at any time; and that’s what really makes it interesting. To take Harry's interactions with 'Vivian' in YMC, for instance: each of them is always trying to play the other, and each of them realizes that, and man that is fun to write. Same thing with Harry and Mary in "Prior Engagements." But Moffat either doesn't see this as important or can't execute it. In fact, even when he writes confrontations between the Doctor and his adversaries, I have noticed that usually there's really only one person talking; who the dominant partner is may switch, but at any given moment you have one character monologuing and the other restricted to inserting one-liners or asking questions that pull out more exposition. The fact that there were a couple moments during the Doctor's final conversation with Davros where they seemed to be actually giving and taking instead of monologuing and waiting for the chance to monologue was one of the things that made it so affecting. You know, until that last moment when we found out that none of the emotion was ever genuine on either side (oh, Moffay, you rug-pulling devil you). I have noticed, incidentally, that Capaldi does actually mark some of the moments when his character is 'acting,' in other words, pretending to emotions he doesn't 'really' feel. His pleading for Clara's life, for instance, in "Magician's Apprentice" struck me as overblown and unconvincing; but as he was apparently never really convinced she was dead, that would appear to have been a desired effect. Ditto for the moment at which he decides to loan Davros some regeneration energy so he can open his eyes to see the sun. I thought, boy he is not selling this treacly bullshit, and no wonder because this is an absolutely idiotic thing for the Doctor to do no matter how much he feels for Davros and Olivier himself could not make that credible...but again, that's just Capaldi marking the fact that the Doctor is not as good an actor as he is. Two thumbs up for Capaldi. But I digress.

Anyway, my point was that from the very beginning of "The Witch's Familiar," Missy takes charge and that never changes. Clara never seriously challenges her (her threatening Missy with a pointed stick is kind of pathetic). It's not really a give and take where both partners are equally matched. Clara, despite having seen plenty of Missy’s evil and also despite the fact that Missy is responsible for a shitload of really horrible things that happened to Danny, starts trusting Missy the moment she takes her down from the rope; and that’s just wrong. “Can I have a pointy stick?” she asks, as if she’s Missy’s child or apprentice or something; Missy tells her “get your own”–and Missy’s absolutely right. Clara should be constantly looking out for her own side, seeking ways to gain the upper hand. And instead, Clara climbs into a living sewer after Missy, allows Missy to handcuff her and use her as Dalek bait, and then  _actually gets inside a Dalek_ because Missy tells her it’s a good idea. Oswald? Souffle girl? Has Moffat decided you’re not remembering your other identities? OK, even so–what makes you think that climbing into a Dalek body and letting it fucking tap your BRAIN is a good plan? If Missy thinks it’s such an awesome plan, why doesn’t SHE do it?

Instead of keeping Missy at arm’s length and watching her own step, Clara winds up locked in a metal box which neutralizes her ability to express herself or even to name herself, and can only stave off the tragic conclusion of Missy’s evil plan by tearfully pleading with the Doctor to recognize her as his friend. Another missed opportunity.

It makes me wonder whether Moffat, like my old nemesis Chris Carter, simply has trouble writing for more than one woman at the same time. Or maybe there’s a finite amount of Female Awesome in his universe, and when Missy’s using it all Clara can’t have any. Either way, this introduction is a mixed bag; but that’s better than a bag of bollocks.





End file.
